craigzy:"Quarks are the subatomic building blocks that form much of the matter-like neutrons and protons-in our universe. There are six of 'em-called up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top..."how the hell is this not a pixar movie? or a porno?

The idea of quarks outside of pairs or triplets would definitely require a number of calculations be re-examined for their assumptions about mass, energy, and unwitnessed particles. This is, while not earth-shattering, definitely interesting.

If anyone has a hankering for how all this is put together, and what this means to the lay person, I strongly suggest you readAtom: Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos, by Isaac Asimov. I'm sure you can find it at your favorite bookseller.

He starts with the Greeks and moves to (nearly) present-day research, explaining the layered complexities one step at a time, and avoiding many of the hyper-specific knowledge pitfalls. The only place I get lost is with names, but I've always been bad with names.

I've read the book no fewer than six times now, and I make a new connection every time I do.

Their current thinking suggests that the new particle's made up of a charm, anti-charm, up and anti-down quark. That's a total of four-unlike any other particle ever observed.

Okay, I will, for now, assume this is correct. NEAT!

But, wait-There are other alternative explanations-it could, for instance, be two two-quark particles interacting so strongly it's impossible to distinguish between them-but it's not known that such a things can ever actually happen. But you just... you just said "It could be a thing which we've never seen before! It could also be this other thing. But probably not, because we've never seen that second thing before."

WhippingBoy:craigzy: "Quarks are the subatomic building blocks that form much of the matter-like neutrons and protons-in our universe. There are six of 'em-called up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top..."

They call it a particle, but at that lifetime and production rate it's better called a resonance state. They suggest the particle might be a pion and a J/ψ meson that slow down for a brief chat when they get close to each other. That's even less impressive than putting two alpha particles next to each other and calling it Beryllium 8.

robohobo:WhippingBoy: craigzy: "Quarks are the subatomic building blocks that form much of the matter-like neutrons and protons-in our universe. There are six of 'em-called up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top..."

how the hell is this not a pixar movie? or a porno?

It'd be a gay porno, by the sound of it.

The up and down motion of this bottom and top has a strange charm to it.

gwowen:craigzy: "Quarks are the subatomic building blocks that form much of the matter-like neutrons and protons-in our universe. There are six of 'em-called up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top..."how the hell is this not a pixar movie? or a porno?Will you settle for a concept album by Hawkwind

Felgraf:But you just... you just said "It could be a thing which we've never seen before! It could also be this other thing. But probably not, because we've never seen that second thing before."

It can't be the second thing because of something called the Pauli exclusion principle which states that certain particles can't inhabit the same quantum state in the same place at the same time. It's a bit sloppily written, but it's accurate.

WhyteRaven74:Felgraf: But you just... you just said "It could be a thing which we've never seen before! It could also be this other thing. But probably not, because we've never seen that second thing before."

It can't be the second thing because of something called the Pauli exclusion principle which states that certain particles can't inhabit the same quantum state in the same place at the same time. It's a bit sloppily written, but it's accurate.

Uh, wouldn't it not apply since the quantum numbers for each of the quarks is different?

Felgraf:I @$^#@ HATE SCIENCE JOURNALISM. GOD why are people so awful at it.

Because science journalists aren't actually scientists, and because scientists are generally not very good writers. We really need to work harder to bridge those gaps.

I was never a science journalist, but I went to j-school and very nearly finished before dropping out and switching to b-school. The amount of education you get on the hard sciences is pretty much a factor of how much you apply yourself during your first two years of general education. (In other words -- not very much for the average j-school grad, because those classes are the last thing a would-be journalist wants to take).

Now that I work in formal research, I find it sadly telling that in j-school, my experience with statistics was limited to a 100-level course and a single hour of dedicated instruction on how to report statistics. I never received any instruction on how to report on scientific literature. I didn't learn those things until I took an advanced statistics class and a research methods class once I switched majors.

/Also, Gizmodo doesn't really cover science OR have any real journalists on staff, so it's to be expected that they'd pretty much screw up any science reporting whatsoever.

WhyteRaven74:Felgraf: But you just... you just said "It could be a thing which we've never seen before! It could also be this other thing. But probably not, because we've never seen that second thing before."

It can't be the second thing because of something called the Pauli exclusion principle which states that certain particles can't inhabit the same quantum state in the same place at the same time. It's a bit sloppily written, but it's accurate.

Aye, I know what the pauli exclusion principle is, I just didn't think that was what they meant. They simply said "Two two-quark particles interacting so strongly it's impossible to tell them apart", which I figured just meant they were having a REALLY strong reaction, not "Two two-quark particles *occupying the same space*"